Chapter 18 #2
I start to press him, but before I can, the door opens with a sharp click, and we spring apart like guilty teenagers as Tia bursts into giggles.
Which isn’t at all embarrassing.
Whistler enters carrying a leather case, his onyx eyes taking in the scene with amusement. As for me, I hadn’t even realized he’d stepped out. So much for keeping my observational skills sharp.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asks mildly.
“Not a thing,” Chase says easily, his professional mask sliding back into place. “We were just beginning the awareness exercises.”
“Of course you were.”
I catch Tia’s eye and see her trying to suppress a grin. I grimace, my cheeks burning from embarrassment. And, yes, from a delicious lingering heat.
I force myself to sit up straighter. I can figure out my feelings later. Now, I need to learn how to survive.
“At its core,” Chase says, now standing by all the equipment, “dreamwalking is about maintaining awareness while moving between states of consciousness. You already do that, so what we’re going to be working on is increasing your control.”
I nod, looking up at him from where I’m sitting cross-legged on that same cushion, now decked out in some very funky bracelets and anklets.
“So these are like electrodes?” I ask.
“That’s a good analogy,” Chase says. “We’ll be able to monitor you, and the cuffs assist in pulling you out if anything goes wrong.”
“Wrong how?” Tia asks from where she’s sitting at the edge of the room, her back to the wall.
“Getting lost between realms,” Chase replies, then turns to face me. “Losing your sense of self, encountering entities too powerful for your current skill level.” He shrugs, as if all that is just another day in the office.
I glance at Tia, whose eyes are as wide as mine.
Whistler points a finger at her, then at me. “You two need to understand that there is no one more qualified to teach Cora about dreamwalking. Why this man is the—”
“Whistler.” The name snaps out, and Whistler immediately goes quiet, his body stiffening as if he’d almost revealed to a toddler that Santa doesn’t exist.
“Cora will do great,” Chase says, while I exchange a what the fuck look with Tia.
“Trust me,” Chase says, his voice now soft. “She’s safe. You’re safe,” he says, turning to meet my eyes. “You’re not even going to fully enter the Nightmare Realm. Tonight, we’re practicing the transition state—that space between waking and sleeping where you can begin to exert conscious control.”
“Wasn’t I already doing that? I mean, I made the conscious decision to trust you when the freaky lava things were chasing us.”
“True,” he says. “But you were reacting to the environment, not manipulating it.”
“But you couldn’t manipulate it either, right? Not completely.”
He frowns, and I cringe, feeling like I’ve just kicked him in the nuts.
“The closer I am to King Adric’s castle, the less control I can gather.”
“Oh. Why?”
He shrugs, not meeting my eyes. “Let’s just call it my Kryptonite. That man. That place.”
I frown, trying to puzzle that out.
“Cora.” My head snaps up. “You’re here to learn how to survive in that realm. Let’s focus on that. Not my rather inconvenient weaknesses.”
I cringe. “Sorry.”
“I assure you, my ego is still healthy. But this needs to be about you.”
I nod. He’s right. This needs to be All About Cora if I want to survive.
And I really, really want to survive. “Sorry,” I say again. “Please impart all the knowledge.”
His lips twitch. “First of all, trust your instincts. And don’t overthink. Remember that you’ve done it before. Let yourself relax, but don’t let go of awareness. You want to feel yourself drifting toward sleep while keeping a part of your mind alert and observant.”
Said out loud, it sounds impossible. But he’s right—I have done this before. I know I have. Which means I can do it again. Now, I stretch out on the floor, my head on the pillow. Tia takes my hand, and I close my eyes as I try to let go of the waking world.
“Good,” Chase’s soft voice comes from all around me, almost like an embrace. “Imagine roots growing from your body into the earth. These roots are your anchor to this realm, to this reality. To Tia. To me. No matter how deep you go, these roots will always call you home.”
I picture thick, strong roots extending from my spine down through the floor, twining with Chase’s roots, then descending through the building’s foundation, deep into the earth below. The visualization feels surprisingly natural, like something I’ve done before without realizing it.
“Excellent.” Chase’s voice grows softer, more distant. “Now, let yourself sink deeper, but slowly. Imagine you’re descending through layers of consciousness like floors in a building. Each level down, you have more control over the environment around you.”
A strange weightlessness begins to overtake me. It’s like floating in warm water, but with a sense of infinite space in all directions. And even with my eyes closed, I can sense a soft glow—silver and gold undulating like ocean waves all around me.
“Where am I?” I whisper, not sure if I’m even speaking aloud.
“In the threshold space,” Chase says from inside my head. “The boundary between realms. This is where you’ll always begin your journeys.”
I open my eyes—or think I do—and find myself standing in what looks like a vast library.
But not the ornate, ancient library I’ve sometimes seen in my dreams—a library I know from her journal my mother saw too.
This one is modern and airy, with floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto a starlit sky.
“Is this real?” I can smell old paper and coffee. I can hear the whisper of pages turning.
“Is what real?”
I turn to find Chase standing beside me, his golden eyes more vibrant in the strange light.
“You created this space using your subconscious associations with safety and knowledge.” He reaches out, stroking my cheek as he speaks in a way that makes me melt a little.
“It’s a good choice for a first construct,” he whispers.
“I created this?”
“Your mind did, yes. It’s one of the most important skills we’ll be working on—shaping your environment intentionally. Not letting its shape form around your fears or desires.” His gaze skims the room, and he nods proudly. “You’re going to do just fine.”
I walk to one of the tall windows and look out at the impossible vista beyond—a night sky filled with swirling galaxies and distant moons. “Am I still in The Griffin’s Nest?”
“You are. But you’re here as well. More here, actually, since only your shell is left behind. Your mind—what makes you Cora—is here with me.”
He reaches for my hand, then twines his fingers with mine. “See? Real.”
He steps closer, and even though I know he’s not flesh and blood—not now—I can feel the pressure of his hand, and my heartbeat increases merely from his proximity.
“Chase,” I whisper, looking out at that star-filled night, not at him.
“Yes?”
“I—” I turn to look at him, then notice the scar on his right cheek. I reach up to run my fingertip over it, and he closes his eyes. “Why do you both have—”
He shakes his head, backing away and breaking contact. “That’s a story for another time. We’re training, Cora. We need to keep our heads in the game.”
We.
Such a simple word, but it seems to fill me up, and in that moment, I’m certain that I’m not the only one who wants to forget about “the game” and just surrender to whatever this is between us.
With some effort, I manage to turn my attention to the window again. “Are they real? The stars?”
“As real as everything else here. But remember, this is still just the threshold. The deeper you go, the more intense things become.”
A chill runs through me. “Intense how?”
“The Nightmare Realm feeds on emotion. Fear, anger, desire. That’s how Adric maintains his power. He draws energy from the dreams and nightmares of mortals.”
“And he wants to use my power to break into our world?”
“Yes.” He moves closer, his brow furrowed, almost as if he’s in pain.
“Chase?”
“Cora.”
My name sounds heavy with foreboding.
“I need to tell—” Before Chase can finish, the library around us shimmers and begins to fade. I feel a tugging sensation, like invisible hands pulling me back toward wakefulness.
“That’s enough for the first session.” Whistler’s voice cuts through the dissolving dream. “You were about to slide deeper without willing it—better to end on a stable note.”
I blink my eyes open to find myself back in the training room, Chase kneeling beside me. “How do you feel?”
“I— Okay, I think. A little weird, like waking up from a nap before you’re ready.”
“That’s normal,” Whistler says. “And I exacerbated it by pulling you out. The disorientation will fade with practice. You’ll see.”
I turn to face Chase. “What were you going to tell me?”
“Just that you’re doing great.”
Except that’s not the truth.
And now I can’t help but wonder what secrets he’s keeping from me. And if—when he does finally tell me everything—I’ll be strong enough to handle it.
The walk back to campus is quieter than our journey to The Griffin’s Nest but it’s a different kind of quiet—charged with awareness and unfinished conversations.
Mr. Griffin joined us, and he and Tia have gone ahead to “sweep the route,” which I suspect is partially an excuse to give Chase and me some privacy.
“You did really well tonight,” Chase says as we cross the quad. “Better than I expected for a first session.”
“Really? What did you expect?”
“Most people panic the first time they realize they’re conscious in an unconscious state. The disorientation can be overwhelming.”
I consider this. “It felt natural, somehow. Like something I’d done before.” I shrug. “But I guess I have been there before, right?”
“You have,” he says. “Just not intentionally. Every nightmare, every dream where you’ve found yourself in the Nightmare Realm—you’ve been accessing those abilities instinctively.”
“The Nightmare Realm,” I repeat, my mind whirring. “You said there are five realms, right?” He nods. “Then how come I always end up there?”